What is Bartering?

What is Bartering? Bartering is the exchange, trade or swapping of goods or services with little to no exchange of money.

The history of bartering probably began in a cave, where a caveman traded a mastodon tusk for a cavewoman's spear. Or maybe he traded a handful of blueberries for her sandals or a meal. Throughout history, bartering has always been a way of life for people around the world. It continues to be a way of life now and happens everywhere around us.

At BarterThing.com™, our THING is to help bring bartering into the future by providing a tool that will connect you with your bartering partner. We all have skills, talents or items or even fun stuff like a timeshare or vacation club that are in demand by others that we would love to exchange for the things that we need. Why pay for them with cash when you can save money and barter instead?

Anyone can search BarterThing.com™ to see what's being traded. But only members can actually contact one another to start the bartering process.

No worries - membership is free!

Once you are a member, it's really a few easy steps to barter. Bartering could be as simple as a hair cut for a shoe shine, to a luxury timeshare in exchange for a landscaping job, or a diamond ring for a car. Imagine house sitting or pet sitting in exchange for walls being painted or wallpaper being hung. The mix and match possibilities are endless - and totally in your control! Remember, you may have a talent, service or item that you think is worthless, but to others, it may be just what they are looking for. You know the old saying “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure”.

A big attraction to bartering is the amount of time and money you save. How much does a luxury timeshare cost? A diamond ring? A haircut? Why spend cash when you can just trade it for like valued goods and services? The savings are substantial. Bartering is the smart consumer’s choice. Why bother with auctions and buying and selling things when you can just swap them?

All you need to do is follow a few simple steps and you will be well on your way of bartering in the future. The first thing you will need to do is become a member. And remember, membership is free.


  • Create:   Set up your account. Pick a fun Bartername for yourself. We’ll also need some contact information for you. But don’t worry, nobody can see this information until you agree that you want to barter with them. And even then, all we provide is an e-mail and first name. But that doesn’t happen until the very end of the 3 step process listed below.
  • List:   When you set up your account, list all the things you have to offer. We call these Bartergories. You should be able to find something in our extensive list of Destinations, Goods, and Services. We’ll let you list up to 20 things, and you can make them active or inactive whenever you want.

Now that you are a member and have things to offer, start looking for your match. Just follow our simple 3 step process:

  • 1. Request:   Use one of our Search functions to find someone that has what you want and see if they want to trade.
  • 2. Accept:   Your request to trade gets sent to the other member. If that person shows an interest, they will accept your request. You are then notified that they are interested too.
  • 3. Confirm:   Now the ball is back in your court. Do you want to move forward? Maybe you already got a better offer. Or you changed your mind. It’s not too late to cancel. But if you are interested, then confirm it. At that point we will route you through the confirmation and connection process. There is a small fee of $2.99 to connect members. But once connected you will have each other’s contact information permanently. You can now take the details of the barter offline. Go take that car for a drive. Check out how good of a haircut the person gives. Conduct the details of the barter person to person. That’s what doing the barter thing is all about. People helping people help themselves.

You can also search our site without being a member. So feel free to look around and see what you can find. Just remember that you will need to become a member – for free – in order to contact someone you want to barter with.

Are you ready to start doing the Barter Thing?